I think that’s given inspiration to other musicians. I know, particularly through the 90s, a lot of bands would cite Rush as an influence. I don’t think it was so much our music, but more the way we really stuck to our guns.
You should never rely on interviews with musicians as being factual. Most of them are mangled and even have made up stuff in them, that is to say, made up stuff by the writer or editor.
I think musicians and artists are the most philanthropic people I know. Their charity record of the music business would hold up to the work of anybody.
I’ve followed the lives of great musicians and have learned that you don’t have to always write in pain. You have all of your past experiences, feelings, and thoughts that you can turn on when you need them and turn off when you don’t.
If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there’s very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it’s melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.
What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity.
We singers have a different level of responsibility from other musicians. We have words that we must convey; we have meanings that we must convey through these lyrics.
There has to be an interaction of musicians on stage. Otherwise I feel too alone up there. When performing is really good, when it really works, maybe once every 15 shows, it’s very special, and you realize that’s why you do it.
Musicians play music because you love… I loved to play drums since I was five. It’s all I ever wanted to do. Rock stars, or as we call them, posers, guys who want to just look great, dress great. They’re not musicians; they’re looking for the fame.
I want musicians to be looked at as people that are not just doing one thing.
Most people are at a concert because they want to be inspired, entertained, moved; we musicians have the mission to be bringers of joy, of ecstasy.
There are so many musicians in New York, and there is this energy and fire in this city that inspires you and makes you want to learn and to get out there. People are constantly evolving and constantly creating here, and you get pushed along just by being in that energy.
Being on ‘Nashville’ and working with some incredible people like T-Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller – so many wonderful, incredible musicians that I’ve been blessed to play with and observe – that has continued to shape the process of arranging music, writing music.
I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves.
All musicians need a day job in the beginning. Unless they still live with their parents, I guess. I’m just lucky that my day job is simply another form of art.
I’ve always enjoyed the enthusiasm of the best studio musicians and, over the years, have collected so many inspired contributions from them.
The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it!
If you’re 100% yourself, then you’re going to be different no matter what. I have this self-honesty approach as opposed to an ego that a lot of musicians put up. I can be myself, and that’s just enough to stand out.
As a recording engineer – someone who is deeply embroiled in the process of making records every day – you see trends and fads run through the social organization of the population of musicians in the same way that they would run through a high school.
The jazz records come out a lot. You find that with many musicians – we don’t listen to our own music for relaxation.
I write bars, for the musicians, because they have to be together.
When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.
I’m the perfect amount of guarded. I don’t reveal too much, and I never reveal who the songs are about. They are real life. People get that. I date a lot of musicians and they do the same thing. People that work with me – who I write about too – they get it. It’s my creative outlet, my therapy.
Critics or musicians who attack me are jealous of my success and the fact that I make people feel so happy.
You should play with real musicians; the best music comes from real people interacting with each other.
I sat in at every club in New York City, jamming with musicians, because it felt right – and because it felt right and we were having fun – the people dancing and sipping their drinks in the clubs felt it too and it made them smile.
I don’t talk about my personal life. But the relationships I’ve had have usually been with other musicians. It’s just easier that way.
Lately, I’m spending more and more time working with non-rock musicians and leaving the mainstream – almost dissolving into another world, musically.
I used to go to Bourbon Street when I was a kid and there would be club after club after club of people who were around when the music started. I mean these are legendary, maybe not so well known, but legendary musicians.
The Blossoms had gotten so we were working seven days a week, three or four sessions a day, which was literally killing us, physically. With the instruments that the musicians play, they can do that, but not with us using our voices.
The thrill of hearing your own voice recorded is still there, I still love it, going into the studio and thinking how can I sing this song and between the producers and the musicians you find a way of doing it.
I don’t like that, because there are a lot of people whose works I admire as actors or actresses, or musicians. And you know, I’ve been a big fan of different musicians or actors.
I’m inspired by artists who use a limited palette, like painter Piet Mondrian, and the White Stripes, two musicians who create an incredible sound. Our food is starting to go back to a ‘less is more’ style.
My family was all musicians. We jam all the time.
Jazz scares me. I’ve witnessed so many incredible singers and jazz musicians. Pop and soul music have always been the things that I felt like I could do.
The best musicians or sound-artists are people who never considered themselves to be artists or musicians.
When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.
I think performers are all show-offs anyway, especially musicians. Unless you show off, you’re not going to get noticed.
We have been working with Habitat for Humanity and we have built eighty homes, 80% of which are being lived in by New Orleans’ musicians. It is called the Musicians’ Village and at the center is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.
I pride myself on working with great musicians.
YouTube provides a unique opportunity for all musicians to market and promote their music and directly engage their fans.
Some artists and indie musicians see Spotify fairly positively – as a way of getting noticed, of getting your music out there where folks can hear it risk-free.
We all kind of dreamed about being musicians, but the narrative around being a musician is it’ll never happen to you. It’s not something that just happens – one in a million shot – all those things that just make you feel like it’ll never happen.
There are some musicians who are talented and see themselves as some kind of natural geniuses or something because of a certain amount of natural ability. But that is often rarely the case over the long term.
Oh man, I love what the South brings as far as the soul, and I really have noticed from even the early days of listening to OutKast and Goodie Mob that Atlanta and the South has a diverse sound to it. You have bounce music. You have soulful musicians. You have artists with vocals who try to do different things.
This is a cause that musicians can take to heart because one of our main reasons for being is to share our music with other people, and this takes us to people who probably wouldn’t otherwise get to hear music on quite this level.
Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.
Musicians don’t respect a lot of the stuff that is on TRL and a lot of musicians think that stuff on the radio is not good musically so when musicians say that they like us it obviously feels good.
I’ve been asked why does Ireland produce so many great musicians, and the answer is it doesn’t. When you count the great musicians Ireland has given the world in the last 20 years, you can do it on one hand.
For about seven years. I really like it there. There are a lot of great musicians. The scene is very open. A lot of stuff going on. People’s ears are really open, they are not closed. A lot of scenes here, people just get tunnel vision and are into one thing.
Session musicians kind of respected me because what I was talking about made sense. That all came from an education. Believe me, education does you more good. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve been around so long.
The point is, technology has empowered so many musicians, you know?
What I found about ‘Nashville’ coming in is it’s about these small performances. It can be on a big stage but detailed, small, heartfelt, real performances from musicians and singers. So if you try to do something bloated or showy, the directors dial us in and let us know.
